High Scores Dialog

[Luiji]

How about a high scores dialog that logs the top ten high scores based on the highest scores people got before Game Over? There could be a little "Enter Initials" dialog too.
Might not come soon, but an online high-scores database that remembers the last 100 or something like that. PROBLEM: Easy to hack and insert 99999999 or something.

I was wondering, if this idea would be accepted, if I could program it. I am somewhat experienced at C++ and I wanted to contribute to this project through programming.

[FluXy]

I wanted to create this myself for years and lately again but it slipped and more important things on my todo are once again ruling my time

First you should only create it for levels and the scores should be saved in the savegame (there should also really an auto-save after this is implemented).
- a score should also include the starting powerup (and probably itembox ?)
- they should be displayed on the overworld if you press a certain key (not automatically)(maybe scrollable like the text-box ?)
- should also be displayed after you finished the level (maybe only if already a score was available so don't see only one)


The GUI stuff should be of course created with CEGUI. Online scores would be too easy to hack.

Have fun

[Luiji]

For the high scores dialog on the overworld, why not have it so that the dialog appears in the corner of the screen? If it is to big, it could cycle through the best scores in a fade-in-and-out manner sort of like in SuperTux.

As for the end-of-the-level high scores dialog, something that should be implemented is that when you finish a nice little "You beet the level!" song should go on while the high scores dialog is up. There could possibly be fireworks in the background (probably would be implemented later).

[FluXy]

For the high scores dialog on the overworld, why not have it so that the dialog appears in the corner of the screen? If it is to big, it could cycle through the best scores in a fade-in-and-out manner sort of like in SuperTux.

I exactly don't like it in the Supertux Overworld It is a bit too obtrusive. Maybe playing around with it a bit can create a nicer solution but it's not important for now.

As for the end-of-the-level high scores dialog, something that should be implemented is that when you finish a nice little "You beet the level!" song should go on while the high scores dialog is up. There could possibly be fireworks in the background (probably would be implemented later).

Fireworks would be too much of borrowing from SMW Not yet important and can be a black background for now.

[Luiji]

Fireworks would be too much of borrowing from SMW Not yet important and can be a black background for now.

I totally forgot that there were fireworks at the end of each level, I thought it was creative!

As for the black background, alternatively you could just continue the running of the level with enemies walking around but with the music of the level changed. This is not of major importance to me, it would be more of something to implement in the future if anybody cares about it.

Anyway, once I get SMC to finally work on my computer (the version from SVN, that is), I will start working on the high scores dialog. It should not take to long, I already got it to compile by temporarily commenting out the "IMG_Init" and "IMG_Quit" calls, now all I have to do is stop it from throwing so many segmentation faults. I might just switch to my Windows computer for development purposes until I figure that one out.

[FluXy]

The current SVN actually has a bug (crashes) if you load the same level again. I will try to fix that soon.

[Luiji]

The current SVN actually has a bug (crashes) if you load the same level again. I will try to fix that soon.

That is exactly the problem I am having! Thank you so much for explaining it to me! I though that I had to do with how my computer's OpenGL fails consistently, which would of meant that I would have had to get a new computer or something.

[Luiji]

The high scores dialog so far just saves per-level in the user profile (theoretically, CEGUI is still giving me problems). I was wondering, should there be a per-user high scores system and/or a per-computer high scores system?

[mrvertigo27]

The high scores dialog so far just saves per-level in the user profile (theoretically, CEGUI is still giving me problems). I was wondering, should there be a per-user high scores system and/or a per-computer high scores system?

per user most def!

[Luiji]

Just to make sure, per-user means for each computer user, not per SMC savegame.

Seemingly, the nice thing about per-user would be that someone could compare their own scores with themselves, that way they would know how well they themselves are doing. However, also having per-computer means that users can compare their greatness to the other users of their computer.

[mrvertigo27]

why not do it arcade style

you have beaten the current high score please enter your name here [____] then display their chosen name.

[Luiji]

Well, that is currently how it is programmed, I am just wondering where the information should be saved other then the savegames.

[Crabmaster]

I was thinking the same thing.

[mrvertigo27]

make it global for the computer, that way users of the same computer can compete without having to manually compare scores.

[BowserJr]

^Not actually possible to implement in a cross-plaftorm way, without requiring that the game be run as root (which we can never do).

[Luiji]

Actually you could.

Windows: C:\Users\All Users\AppData\Roaming\smc\Highscores.txt
Linux: /var/games

Yes, I know that /var/games assumably requires root, but a lot of the games I play save to that directory without me ever having to type in my root password, so there must be some way to do it.

[mrvertigo27]

well how about this, to install (in ubuntu anyway) installing the game requires a sudo, why dont we (at install time) place a pointer file there that says something like

Code: Select all

Do check reg_users.txt [would be in the smc directory)

regusers.txt would be a list of the home directories of smc users on that machine like:

Code: Select all

Check high scores.txt (/home/MrVertigo)
Check high scores.txt (/home/buttface)
Check high scores.txt (/home/user three)

sorry i dont do c++ but i hope i got the idea across...

[Luiji]

well how about this, to install (in ubuntu anyway) installing the game requires a sudo, why dont we (at install time) place a pointer file there that says something like

Code: Select all

Do check reg_users.txt [would be in the smc directory)

regusers.txt would be a list of the home directories of smc users on that machine like:

Code: Select all

Check high scores.txt (/home/MrVertigo)
Check high scores.txt (/home/buttface)
Check high scores.txt (/home/user three)

sorry i dont do c++ but i hope i got the idea across...

/home/buttface?

Anyway, I understand. You are suggesting that there be a .txt file specifying which users to search the high scores file for (I think), however, this is impossible without root. Different users have high protection on Linux. Global data is stored in /var, and more specifically game data is stored in /var/games. Somehow, games do not have to be root in order to access this directory.

[mrvertigo27]

is there anywhere you can save a global file without root privelages like... maybe the /home folder itself? without creating a group and user on the linux system just for this (which might solve it but is poor form) for this to work we would have to find some common read write folder or a way to place a script in the root smc directory that could compile all this info.

[Luiji]

Supposedly, anything in the /usr/share/games and/or /usr/local/share/games folder is privileged as the "game" group. Anything in the game group can access the /var/games directory. As long as SMC is in either of those directories, it can modify the /var/games directory, thus allowing it to have a global high-scores entry.